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A good depiction of a Chelish soldier is on the cover of LB1: Tower of the Last Baron. He's about to end up with a sore back.
I picture soldiers in Cheliax to be much like any soldier. The only difference would be the colors they and the symbol of Asmodeous might be present. So I picture a roman style soldier wearing black armor with red highlights and possibly the symbol of Asmodeous if they work for the Church or House Thrune.
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A good depiction of a Chelish soldier is on the cover of LB1: Tower of the Last Baron. He's about to end up with a sore back.So its primarly a kind of typical medieval soldier in a red/black surcoat? I find this a little bit unimaginative.
For a soldier? Not at all. Just a realistic portrayal. Standard issue for a common foot soldier was sparse no matter the region or the time period. Now as to officers now thing chaos warrior style or anything else outlandish and visible.
There's a really cool illo of a city guard from Corentyn in the Cities of Golarion book; I'll be sure to preview it as we get closer to the book's release date. :)
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Do their legions have devils as support units integrated? What do you think?
I'm pretty sure it's mentioned in Cheliax: Empire of Devils that, even though Cheliax is a nation of devil-worshipers, the actual presence of devils is a rare occurence. With that in mind, I doubt that Chelish legions have support units consisting of devils. Possibly on rare occasions...
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Ideas from a previous thread;
Stealing from the inspirations mentioned upthread (Soviet Russia, Hitler's Germany and Imperial Rome), I would have Cheliax be a site of magnificent and awe-inspiring spectacles, to show off the power (particularly the military power) of the Chelaxian state. Parades of soldiers moving in perfect unison, performing weapons drills, in shining oiled steel and bright red silk and dyed leather dress uniforms would be led by fire-dancers, athletic members of the lower castes who function only as entertainers, performing risky and thrilling acts of acrobatics and fire-eating. Slaves chosen for their imposing appearance would carry litters, on which members of the Asmodean clergy would be ferried along, the heads of their ceremonial maces adorned with silvery tracery lit by ruddy Continual Flame, and worked into the shape of pentacles.
Where a military parade of this sort in Soviet Russia would include tanks and missiles on flatbed launchers, instead would proudly walk Bone, Horned and Ice Devils (chosen for their imposing size), and perhaps something more exotic, such as a brace of Chain Devils riding Hellcats, sweeping their menacing gaze from side to side at the cheering Chelaxians, playing the part of fearsome protector of the state and living weaponry of war, soaking up the fearful acclaim of these mortal servants of Asmodeus.
(And accepting that this is their task on Golarion, to make the mortal fools *relish* the sight of devils walking among them, so as to prepare them as a culture for the days to come, when they will be taking orders from devils...)
Nothing like a shear show of wealth if you have all your "ground pounders" armored in some variant of Plate. May not be very "real world" but if a nation has that much wealth that all its soldiers are so equipped it'd frighten the heck out of me.
Yet that is really pushing it. More approachable would be elite units that were specially equipped just for the intimidation factor. Great helms that had demonic features and the like... plate with armor spikes... heavy pole-arms.
Even if all they did was give their rank and file soldiers half face masks with demonic features... it'd add some flavor.
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Nothing like a shear show of wealth if you have all your "ground pounders" armored in some variant of Plate. May not be very "real world" but if a nation has that much wealth that all its soldiers are so equipped it'd frighten the heck out of me.
The Roman 'cheap seats' would wear boiled leather breastplates that were oiled up to such a shine that they *looked* like metal. That would be something handy for the newbies, so that they look amazing on parade, even 'though they don't have actual breastplates yet...
Definitely agree on the face masks.
Armor could even be designed to resemble various devils, with the 'Osyluth Squadron' wearing bone white armor resembling chitin (or actually made of chitin) with a skeletal / insectoid appearance and the 'Kyton Legion' having chain armor that has many dangling razored blades hanging from chains, acting as armor spikes.
As the whole turn to diabolism is relatively recent, the vast majority of Chelaxian soldiery would still have more traditional armor types, IMO. These sorts of things would be elite units.
Do their legions have devils as support units integrated? How would you describe chelaxian soldiers from a visual standpoint?
Yes, they're Dretches smushed into full plate looking quite pitiful with rolls and folds of skin hanging out the various gaps.
A good depiction of a Chelish soldier is on the cover of LB1: Tower of the Last Baron. He's about to end up with a sore back.So its primarly a kind of typical medieval soldier in a red/black surcoat? I find this a little bit unimaginative.
Makes sense, though. They're just like any other soldier.
Go up the ranks, and you'll get more impressive stuff. Go to the battle clergy of Asmodeus, or the Hellknights, and you'll get your awesome!
The Roman 'cheap seats' would wear boiled leather breastplates that were oiled up to such a shine that they *looked* like metal. That would be something handy for the newbies, so that they look amazing on parade, even 'though they don't have actual breastplates yet...
Where did I read something like this before....?
Ah, yes, in Bastards of Erebus:
"Note that while these Hellknights wear what appears to be the intimidating armor of the Order of the Rack, as armigers they have not yet earned the right to actually wear plate armor. Instead, the “plates” of their armor are actually boiled leather with chainmail reinforcements — the armor itself functions identically to chainmail."
Outfitting an army or even the city guard in anything tougher than studded leather is incredibly expensive.
Let's say you have 5000 troops outfitted with studded leather, a light wooden shield and a long sword. That's 215,000 gp
Now let's upgrade those troops to chainmail and a light steel shield. That becomes 870,000
Upgrade to a breast plate and you've got 1,120,000 gp
Upgrade to half plate or full plate and you get into even crazier numbers.
Even if the city/nation gets the equipment at wholesale prices, you're talking big bucks.
Now take into account how much those troops get paid. Probably a few gold a month. It's like cops driving around in mustangs and corvettes.
Now look at it from the city/nation's point of view regarding cost vs effect. Is the extra AC worth the money for an easily replaceable 1st or 2nd level guy? It's like Longshanks says in Braveheart, "Arrows cost money, the dead cost nothing."
Now, as soldiers increase in levels the ability to replace them becomes more difficult thus making it worth while to spend the extra cash.
It's all about the Benjamins, even in Golarion
There is a difference between "realism" and "suspension of disbelief." Without running any numbers, I know that no country can afford the best armor possible for their common foot soldiers, nor the amount of time it would take to make that armor.
I don't need to run any numbers to know that it wouldn't sit right to have every Stormtrooper in Star Wars wearing Dark Trooper powered armor, or flying TIE Defenders, even though I'm not running any numbers and I'm fairly certain the Empire has tons of credits to throw into their military.
The Galactic Empire isn't exactly the best example to use in this debate KEjr, they're specifically known for OVER cheapifying their common soldier's gear, to the point of throwing alot of lives away because they just didn't give a damn.
They practically invented the Tie Fighter ship class to be used in expendable swarms that would die like flies to a flamethrower.
(One of the reasons the Rebellion almost always won the dogfights, unless they were outnumberred at least three or four to one.)
Well, the gut reaction that even a rich nation can't give their cannon fodder the best gear still stands. And honestly, most nations that come across as Tyrannical with a capital T tend to have the same view as the Empire, i.e. "as loyal soldiers of the empire, its your job to intimidate the enemy by showing them how many of you we can afford to let die in this fight."
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There is a difference between "realism" and "suspension of disbelief." Without running any numbers, I know that no country can afford the best armor possible for their common foot soldiers, nor the amount of time it would take to make that armor.
I don't need to run any numbers to know that it wouldn't sit right to have every Stormtrooper in Star Wars wearing Dark Trooper powered armor, or flying TIE Defenders, even though I'm not running any numbers and I'm fairly certain the Empire has tons of credits to throw into their military.
I totally agree. FR suffers from this problem, too; if I remember correctly [according to FR Adventures] all Zhentish and Sembian soldiers wear Plate Mail!
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Well, we're talking about verisimilitude here, so it will depend on the individual Players.
Thus each group will have to come up with their own right answer. If one Player's verisimilitude is broken then the DM should consider toning down the armor to make it more realistic -- create the effect some other way.
For me, though my verisimilitude is pretty low compared to most gamers, (I like more realistic situations), I would outfit the army in intimidating armor that creates an awe effect at the game table and, since we'd need to have melee anyway, have the PCs fight some well challenging NPCs instead of NPCs that have a tissue paper AC.
Not this "realism" argument again. Realism and DnD does not go together. DnD is about a 4-6 man superpowered freak team running around in dungeons, fighting funny looking blue monsters with 6 arms which guards hoards of treasures. (If you want a proof for this claim just read the new blog entry of paizo)
Not the way I run it. If marching from room to room, killing monsters and looting is sufficient to keep your mind entertained, more power to ya. You'd hate playing in one of my games though. I run entire sessions with little or no combat and rarely give out treasure. Yet, my players consistently have more fun than I did in the hack and slash sessions I played back in college.
No, if I want a realistic rpg, where I calculate exact equipment costs for soldiers, I would use Harn or AGoT (if anybody here knows these fine rpgs)but never DnD.
When it comes to realism in a game every DM needs to draw a line. I draw my line further back than you do. I also draw multiple lines, because although I like my setting to have a basis in reality I also don't require players to keep track of every gold piece arrow, or spell component.
Outfitting an army or even the city guard in anything tougher than studded leather is incredibly expensive.
Let's say you have 5000 troops outfitted with studded leather, a light wooden shield and a long sword. That's 215,000 gp
Now let's upgrade those troops to chainmail and a light steel shield. That becomes 870,000
Upgrade to a breast plate and you've got 1,120,000 gp
Upgrade to half plate or full plate and you get into even crazier numbers.Even if the city/nation gets the equipment at wholesale prices, you're talking big bucks.
Now take into account how much those troops get paid. Probably a few gold a month. It's like cops driving around in mustangs and corvettes.
Now look at it from the city/nation's point of view regarding cost vs effect. Is the extra AC worth the money for an easily replaceable 1st or 2nd level guy? It's like Longshanks says in Braveheart, "Arrows cost money, the dead cost nothing."
Now, as soldiers increase in levels the ability to replace them becomes more difficult thus making it worth while to spend the extra cash.
It's all about the Benjamins, even in Golarion
Oh... I agree its not "realistic" as I so stated in my post.
However, the more powerful the nation the more people they can force into labor for them. If they go to another nation and conquer them, one of the first things they'd do is put all the smiths into slavery working night and day on armor and weaponry for your troops. You'll also seize any raw materials you can get your hands on.
So! If we go with the model of a empire claiming resources and forcing smiths into forging equipment for "free" as slaves. It actually costs the those controlling the slaves very little (food mostly). The more nations they conquer the more "free" resources and craftsman they get as "tribute".
Well armored/armed troops are going to generally suffer less losses over worse equipped units. Having nearly "unstoppable" troops would add to the intimidation factor. The more experience troops you have that survived your first several conquests could then be these "elite" troops. The more battles you win the more experienced troops you have.
Once the war machine gets rolling... it can be hard to stop.
If you think about it, Geb would be the nation with troops loaded up with platemail. Since the cost of maintaining an undead army is next to nothing Geb probably has a lot of excess cash laying around. Zombies and skeletons require no pay, no food, no housing, no clothes, etc. Of course they also don't pay taxes, so I maybe Geb doesn't have loads of gold to spare.
Oh... I agree its not "realistic" as I so stated in my post.
However, the more powerful the nation the more people they can force into labor for them. If they go to another nation and conquer them, one of the first things they'd do is put all the smiths into slavery working night and day on armor and weaponry for your troops. You'll also seize any raw materials you can get your hands on.
So! If we go with the model of a empire claiming resources and forcing smiths into forging equipment for "free" as slaves. It actually costs the those controlling the slaves very little (food mostly). The more nations they conquer the more "free" resources and craftsman they get as "tribute".
Well armored/armed troops are going to generally suffer less losses over worse equipped units. Having nearly "unstoppable" troops would add to the intimidation factor. The more...
Slave troops and slave military systems in general are not easy to set up and difficult to control. Enslaving freemen to do the work is usually a bad idea. Usually you have to raise them as military slaves much like the mamlukes of egypt or the jannisaries of turkey. And even then both of those groups ended up running their nations at various points.
The costs are also more than food mostly. There is housing, feeding, tending to wounded, equipment, arms, armor, transportation, etc etc. a slave army is not that much cheaper than a concscripted army or a standing army.
It also means that not only do you have to deal with standard military discipline problems you have to worry about trained and armed slave revolts that may include people capable of supplying the slaves with weapons since you mentioned enslaving the smiths as well.
Tributary status is actually more profitable than enslaving. Especially if you show the conquered nation how good life can be in the empire and then offer them citizenship for loyal service.
Secondly, that doesnt mesh really with how Cheliax is presented. While slavery is there the scale...
True true... I was not really specifically suggesting this with Cheliax in mind though. I also did not mention making the slaves into soldiers, just the craftsmen into slaves. You'd want your own fanatically loyal troops and not conscripts.
Setting it up would require time and effort. The current Cheliax is but a shadow of its former glory and would not have the funds and/or power to do so.
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Given the state of affairs, I could see the majority of Chelaxian soldiery wearing the same style of armor they've always worn, only painted or dyed in the new red-and-black colors. The smiths might be slowly working on new cuts and styles, but the vast majority of the rank and file would wear the same old stuff that their fathers wore pre-House of Thrune, just with different colored tabards, and marching under different colored standards.
While it may cost a lot to equip a 5000 unit (either military or city guards), most of the nations have been around for a very long time, so the cost could be spread over centuries.
The newer nations, like the old one, could raid/excavate/recover armor from even older no longer existing nations.
I don't have a problem with chain mail armored armies, with plate for elite units (if they want it).
While it may cost a lot to equip a 5000 unit (either military or city guards), most of the nations have been around for a very long time, so the cost could be spread over centuries.
The newer nations, like the old one, could raid/excavate/recover armor from even older no longer existing nations.
I don't have a problem with chain mail armored armies, with plate for elite units (if they want it).
That is a VERY good point. Golarion is a VERY old world. I'd forgot raiding the armories of fallen nations for Plate Armor as well. Even cheaper/quicker to have your smiths re-size some plate armor than to create new ones.
That is a VERY good point. Golarion is a VERY old world. I'd forgot raiding the armories of fallen nations for Plate Armor as well. Even cheaper/quicker to have your smiths re-size some plate armor than to create new ones.
Don't forget repairing all the fresh holes and dents along with polishing out the blood, urine and poop stains (you poop when you die ya know).
By the way, can armor be haunted?
That is a VERY good point. Golarion is a VERY old world. I'd forgot raiding the armories of fallen nations for Plate Armor as well. Even cheaper/quicker to have your smiths re-size some plate armor than to create new ones.Don't forget repairing all the fresh holes and dents along with polishing out the blood, urine and poop stains (you poop when you die ya know).
By the way, can armor be haunted?
Bah... thats what the underclothes are for. You are not just wearing that armor on bare skin you know. Otherwise I'd say that it'd chaff... "just a little bit". :)
I'm sure armor could be "haunted". Or at least... most ghost do have a attachment to their physical remain. If those remains are disturbed... a ghost would surely be miffed about it.
Not this "realism" argument again. Realism and DnD does not go together. DnD is about a 4-6 man superpowered freak team running around in dungeons, fighting funny looking blue monsters with 6 arms which guards hoards of treasures.
That's ridiculous. The blue part is so not important to D&D.
Plus: D&D? THIS IS PATHFINDAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA. (Where is a bottomless pit when you need one?)
throwing alot of lives away because they just didn't give a damn.
How unlike the Diabolical Empire.
A good depiction of a Chelish soldier is on the cover of LB1: Tower of the Last Baron. He's about to end up with a sore back.
I totally did not expect you.
ahhh... but real life armor that is "buried" in the ground some place cannot compete with fantasy preservative magics. Example being a advanced society puts away a cache of weapons before its fall unexpected fall, it coats everything in oil of timelessness.
ahhh... but real life armor that is "buried" in the ground some place cannot compete with fantasy preservative magics. Example being a advanced society puts away a cache of weapons before its fall unexpected fall, it coats everything in oil of timelessness.Possible but stretching it to me. That much oil of timelessness is going to be expensive. 75gp to make a dose to coat 8 medium sized objects still gets pricey very quickly.
Then you get into why would they do that? And unlikely they would do it on a large scale unless there is a very good reason to do so.
Mosy buried items might at best be wrapped in an oiled leather or in a wooden case. Which isnt going to hold out for long.
But then, I am the guy who hates random dungeons existing without a reason for them being there. "The mysterious dungeon builders" of many fantasy games has always bothered me.
-Weylin
Putting aside the weapons and preserving them magically is kinda like the US navy "mothballing" warships and airplanes. They have more than they need and know they will not be using the weapons or armor for awhile and know that short term protection vs. the ravages of time and the elements isn't going to be enough. (2 years vs. 10+ years)
Most countries stockpile basic weapons for times of war, as the enemy will not wait for you to spend a few months/years equiping your army to defend against them. Those weapons will be preserved by mundane and/or magical means.
As for the cost in equiping armies, please note that the Roman legions had the equivalent to breatplates, large wooden shields, short swords and lots of pila (javelins). So, it is possible even without a very old world without any real magic.
Mending and Make Whole take care of an awful lot of trouble with rusted and corroded weaponry and armor. And proper storage works too.
I think old armor with new tabards is the way to go for just about any change in administration. Some of the fantasy armor people come up with is absurd.
I still remember the first Dungeons and Dragons comic book when it came out, where aside from verse that didn't scan, there was an illustration of the lich king wearing a pot helm with a crown welded to the brim. A friend of mine whose a comics artist said, "What's wrong with this picture?" then turned the comic upside-down. "Look! The man's wearing a champagne bucket on his head!"
It was true. It made ridiculous armor, but viewed the other way, was a reasonably attractive champagne bucket.
I like some realism in my fantasy. The only people who should be wearing ridiculously improbable spiked chaos warrior armor are illusionists and their friends.